On July 28, 2021, internet personality Stew Peters landed what he described as an "exclusive" scoop: a video interview with what he billed as Pfizer insider Karen Kingston who, Peters claimed, produced "indisputable documentation" that proves mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) contain a "poison" known as graphene oxide.
The video went viral, despite the fact that Kingston produced no such documentation, and despite the reality that her tenure at Pfizer, according to her LinkedIn profile, involved marketing cardiovascular therapies to healthcare providers in Manhattan from 1996 to 1998 — well over a decade before pharmaceutical companies had any interest in mRNA vaccines.
Graphene oxide is an ultrathin material with unique electrostatic properties popular with conspiracy theorists because of its application in various experimental technologies. The conspiracy theory promoted on the "Stew Peters Show" suggests that the vaccines secretly contain undisclosed graphene oxide to test how much their bodies could hold for future graphene-oxide-based mind control shenanigans or perhaps, as Kingston described the vaccines in her interview, for "planned genocide."
PETERS: There is a legitimate theory that these shots are actually designed to create some sort of connectivity between humans, 5g, whatever this is controlling, your thoughts, your memories, all of these things. I mean, those are realistic and plausible.
KINGSTON: That's not possible with this round. They rushed this thing out. They're just seeing, you know, how much they could put into people before they die, I think, honestly.
Graphene oxide is not included in the ingredient lists of any filings for either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Speaking to Reuters, Pfizer’s senior associate of global media relations said that, “Graphene oxide is not used in the manufacture of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.” Arguments suggesting that they do, therefore, rest on "independent research" that purports to have uncovered nefarious secrets by scouring the internet for hints.
Kingston lays out her research process in the interview, which makes it easy to spot how and where she either distorts or misinterprets the information her argument rests on. The messenger RNA in COVID-19 vaccines is protected by a lipid nanoparticle layer that also allows it to enter the non-nuclear portion of a cell. The specific lipid formulations used by both Pfizer and Moderna differ, but both include at least one chemical classified as a PEGylated lipid. Such lipids have had a polymer named polyethylene glycol added to them.
Kingston's argument rests on two deeply flawed assertions: that the only company in the world that produces PEGylated lipids is the Chinese company Sinopeg and that documentation on Sinopeg's website proves that graphene oxide is present in their products. Neither assertion, however, bears any semblance to reality.
Sinopeg Does Not Produce Lipids for Pfizer or Moderna
Chemicals have multiple names and IDs. Kingston explained that she found the website for Sinopeg by entering the chemical names or ID numbers of two of the lipid chemicals listed in the Pfizer emergency use application (ALC-0315 and ALC-0159) in a search engine and discovered Sinopeg sells both on its website. "I didn't find Sinopeg by Googling 'Sinopeg.' I literally put in the MSDS CAS number," referring to an ID given to industrial chemicals.
Kingston's implicit assumption is that no other company in the world sells these chemicals. "So it's right there. It's being manufactured in China," she asserted, after sharing the above fact as evidence. This is a deeply flawed assumption. A search for the lipids ALC-0315 (2036272-55-4) and ALC-0159 (1849616-42-7) reveals a panoply of companies that also sell these and other lipids, including the ones in Pfizer's vaccine. As just two examples, the company in Watertown, Massachusetts, Biochempeg sells ALC-0159 and New Jersey-based company MedChemExpress sells ALC-0315 to qualified researchers.
More to the point, however, U.K.-based company Croda produces lipids for Pfizer. Moderna does not use any of the lipids discussed above and instead uses proprietary PEGylated lipid SM-102 that is produced in its own manufacturing facility in Massachusetts. This fact makes Kingston's second argument, which relies on information from Sinopeg's website, even more misguided than it already is.
A Paper About Graphene Oxide On Sinopeg's Website Has Nothing To Do With Vaccines
In the interview, Kingston highlights the presence of an academic paper on Sinopeg's website that uses the words "graphene oxide" as evidence, apparently, that this chemical is in the vaccine. "They explained here on Sinopeg that [graphene oxide] is the core shell structured polyethylene glycol, functionalized graphene for energy storage, polymer, polymer, dielectric, combined mechanical and dialect performances," she said, repeating several impressive words from the paper's title.
This paper, originally published in the journal Composites Science and Technology, has nothing to do with vaccines or with Sinopeg. The research was not performed, written, or funded by Sinopeg. It is catalogued on the company's website under "industry news" because it discussed a potential method to modify the solubility of graphene oxide (which becomes less soluble over time when employed for energy storage) using PEGylated lipids — the product Sinopeg is known for — in its manufacturing process. This appears to be Kingston's entire link to graphene oxide: a wholly unrelated research paper reproduced in the industry news section of a company website that has nothing to do with Pfizer or Moderna.
This is far from "irrefutable evidence" and — it bears mentioning — does not come from any sort of inside information gathered from Kingston's two years in Pfizer's marketing department in the 1990s, despite Peters hyping her as an insider.
Earlier Claims About Graphene Oxide? Still Wrong!
The Kingston interview is the latest in a long series of dubious claims about graphene oxide and COVID-19 vaccines, but other so-called "experts" have produced what conspiracy theorists consider to be evidence of its presence in COVID-19 vaccines.
In an interview on the same show from a few weeks earlier, Peters interviewed an "expert" who claimed — based on a "study" from Spain's University of Almería — that COVID-19 vaccines are "virtually 99.99% graphene oxide." As described by medical fact-checker HealthFeedback, this "study" — which was denounced by the University, not peer-reviewed, and launched in response to a request made by a prolific spreader of vaccine misinformation — "compared images obtained via electron microscopy .. of graphene oxide, and … a liquid that, according to the document, could be the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, although the product’s 'origin and traceability is unknown'."
Experts interviewed by Health Feedback said the photographs taken of both liquids could be anything, and the outlet noted that the "author acknowledges that a vial arrived by 'courier' service, but that he doesn’t know its traceability." In the scientific world, such a sample would be considered 'trash.'
Even more problematic for those who claim that graphene oxide has been added to mRNA vaccines is the coloring. These vaccines are clear to mildly cloudy, but as highlighted by Reuter's, Matthew Diasio, an American Chemical Society Congressional Science & Engineering fellow, stated that a sample that contained even 1% of graphene oxide would look dark if not black. This is simply not what the vaccines look like.
In sum, no credible evidence has been presented to suggest the presence of graphene oxide in COVID-19 vaccines, and Kingston's ability to Google CAS numbers does not change this reality. As such, we rank the claim "False."
